Before the Curtain: SPIDEY Still Sings, ROBIN HOOD to Future

Cartoon Network continues to forget their name, this time developing a new live-action hour-long drama aimed at teens. The story features Kevin G. Schmidt as the son of globe-trotting anthropologists who has trouble when he stops traveling and starts attending high school. The show, Unnatural History will also star Jordan Gavaris and Italia Ricci (pictured above). Schmidt's web seires Poor Paul will also be going for a second season, though its presumed his role on daytime soap Young and the Restless will end.

-------Spider-man: Turn off the Dark, the upcoming Broadway musical featuring the webslinger, is feeling the old Parker luck in a way familiar to the superhero from Queens: cash-flow problems. The official line on the show is that it is "still on track" for its February 2010 Previews and March 2010 Release. Unofficially, however, various aspects of production have slowed or halted, apparently due to problems with actually using (not getting) the massive $35 million budget for the show. Producers don't see the problem lasting long, and the show with music by Bono and The Edge of U2 and starring Evan Rachel Wood as Mary Jane Watson and Alan Cumming as Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin, won't likely have cash problems once it launches early next year.

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The original guy that dressed in green and combatted evil with a bow and arrow is getting a futuristic update. Warner Bros and the producers of The Dark Knight and 300 will be putting Robin Hood in a dystopian future London, where he and his band of Merry Men are trying to bring hope back to the ruined world. This project begins development simultaneously with a new more classic Robin Hood movie being made by the Gladiator team of Ridley Scott and Russel Crowe.
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Speaking of the busy Ridley Scott, who last week we reported is developing a prequel to the Alien series, he'll be looking for novel inspiration on another film. Scott Free, his production studio, will team with the also-busy Appian Way production group run by Leonardo DiCaprio on a new film vesion of Brave New World. DiCaprio will be lined up to also star in the picture. The book, surprisingly, has never been made into a feature film for theaters, though it has been adapted to television.
News courtesy Hollywood Reporter and Variety.